I wish a few of you would read the great deal of information there is on the site, and links from that information to scientific articles about HPV. Start by doing s search right here on the message board since we have discussed this before. There is a great deal known about HPV. I disagree with your doctor: and published studies, not anecdotal evidence, suggest that patients with oral cancers which have HPV as their origin, have slight better survival rates. The main reason for this is an issue which has been discussed here before in detail related to field cancerization. I am traveling back from NYU to California, so I do not have the time right now to address this fully again, but the old posts are there in the search engine. Remember that we have a separate search engine that runs the main site and news section, which also contains great information about HPV.

Here are some quick facts that should hopefully spur you to read further. I have to work at the OCF booth at the dental convention in California with my wife and Mark (who flew out at his own expense to donate his time helping) this weekend, but if you are still confused about it all email me on Monday and I will go through it with you.

Smokers contaminate many other parts of their bodies when using tobacco; this "field cancerization " causes different types of cancers to appear at different times, in different physical locations, but all from the original source. It would not be uncommon for a person at various times of their lives, after a long period of smoking, to develop an oral cancer, lung cancer, or even esophageal cancers at different points in time, but all based on an original prime mover event; X amount of years of tobacco use. Hence their reduced survivals from oral cancer manifestations, since they have other subsequent cofactors and contributing disease that add to the issues leading to morbidity and death.

HPV in tobacco users can be a facilitator and a cofactor, besides being a factor unique to itself. For reasons, which are not understood at this time, some people are able to shed the virus. There are no symptoms that you have it, and there is no good test for males to know if they have it or not. But during your PAP/cervical examination for only 40 dollars an HPV test can be conducted, since the area being tested (the cervix) is small and well defined unlike the oral cavity. Many people have HPV 16/18 and do not develop cervical cancer or oral cancer, (even though it is well documented as the cause of 98% of all cervical cancers) so as with all cancers, we know that it is a certain subset of patients, with a certain genetic makeup, that are susceptible to it. What that genetic make up is, is still under investigation. But just like we found that the targeted cancer drug Irrisa worked 100% of the time in a 10% subset patient population of lung cancer patients, we will eventually define that subset of patients that will develop HPV related cervical and oral cancer SCC's from it as well.

Note please the Many news article on the new HPV vaccine soon to hit the world and that will greatly reduce the incidence of cervical cancer, and while the definition of which head and neck cancers it will affect is more obscure, it will have some positive impact here as well. There is no currently protection from the HPV virus, and the best that you can do is limit the number of sexual partners to lessen risk of contracting it. Condoms etc. are not effective means of avoiding transmission. There is much more to say about this, and I have read hundreds of scientific articles on the subject as a non-smoking HPV positive oropharyngeal stage four cancer patient myself, with a wife who is also positive. We are luck to have on our advisory board one of the most published HPV authorities in the world, Dr. Maura Gillison at Johns Hopkins, who has been a weal of information to me and via her many publications in peer reviewed scientific journals. Do some reading, and Monday/Tuesday we can continue this thread with more questions and the answers that I do have.